and put the two files 'fs.zip' and 'os656.img' in the root directory of the key.
Insert the key. Hold down all four gamepad buttons (X, O, square, and check) and power on. If you don't see the breakout game, then you might not be holding down all four buttons. Later firmware does a better job of providing feedback here, you might have had old firmware before the upgrade.

This should give you a clean install of 656 on an unactivated machine.

Better still is to use an appropriate Customization key for your country. Insert the key and power on with the four gamepad keys held down; this will reflash as before and then install appropriate content and activities for your country.

Now, activate the machine

When your upgraded but unactivated machine boots it will go to the activation screen and try to find an activation lease from a school server or USB key, and not find one.

activation.laptop.org has an expired security certificate,if this hinders you,read more about it.

to generate a lease.sig file. Put the lease.sig file in the root directory of a USB key and boot with it inserted, and it will activate (and copy the activation lease to the NAND). Note that you can not put the lease.sig file on the customization key and expect it to work; you must either use a new key for the activation lease or else temporarily rename the 'boot' directory of the customization key.

Alternatively, you can activate from a school server, but the server-side part of this is not in school server builds yet.